In memory of Gabriela Cruz Ares passed away on the 18th of July 2025 in Hamburg, Germany.

Gabriela Cruz Ares was chair of the Section Public Policy and Psychiatry from 2022 until 2025. She joined the section in 2019 as co-chair. She was too young to leave us, just 49 years old.
Gabriela was foremost a lovely human being, a very dedicated psychiatrist and a creative, inspiring and supportive member of the Section. She initiated and took part in all the symposia we submitted and presented at the different WPA meetings. The last presentation our section had with Gabriela was at the WPA World congress in Vienna in 2023 with the title: "Ecosystems, Nature and Mental Health – can public policy make a positive contribution?”, which was an intersectional symposium between the Section for Public Policy and Psychiatry and the Section for Evolutionary Psychiatry.

Gabriela was born in Mexico where she studied medicine, with a post degree in forensic psychiatry. She met her husband Jan in Berlin during a vacation in 2009. He moved first to Mexico to be with her, where their first daughter was born. They then moved to Germany in 2011, where Gabriela got to work as a doctor in a day clinic in psychiatry. Her second daughter was born in 2015. She then started the long road for acceptance as a German psychiatrist which was achieved in 2020. Since then, she worked in the department of psychiatry and psychotherapy in Asklepios Westklinikum in Hamburg, Germany.

Her passing away is so very, very sad, mostly for her two daughters and husband, but for us in the Public Policy section, there is also an empty space after her. We miss her, with her characteristic smile, positivity, her way of saying “super”, her engagement, her professionalism, new ideas for the field and always eager to support public policy in psychiatry. We will try to do our best without her.

Members of the Public policy and Psychiatry section.